A verdict to re-imprison a woman for disobeying a court order was stayed by the judge in Madina Court on Monday. The female doctor is in her 30s and is working as an assistant dentist in Madina Health Affairs. She had earlier been imprisoned for three months for refusing to stay with her father and insisting on staying with her divorced mother. When asked by the judge for her justification for refusing to follow the court's orders, she replied saying it would be unthinkable for her as a daughter to refuse to live with her father as she is well aware of a father's rights under Shariah. However, the doctor said she feels uncomfortable in her father's house because she was brought up by her mother until she graduated from college and was employed as a doctor in a government hospital. “I would like to return the favor to my mother as my father separated from her when I was still a fetus in her womb,” the doctor said. The judge overruled the ruling to imprison her and said she could complete her plea transaction in the Appeals Court in Makkah. Her lawyer Ahmad Al-Shinqiti said all attempts at reconciliation with her father have failed. “I was surprised that my father wants me to stay with him in a small three-room apartment housing 25 sons and daughters. Furthermore, my father has four wives,” she said. The woman, who has a 13-year-old daughter, went to live with her mother after her own divorce. __
